And In Between, Lay a Meadow
by Bluelinote
Summary: Timeless prequel to canon. Little lost blood-drinking hellion missing a heart meets feathery-she out of the saintly ways, on the soft grass of a twilit meadow. In the middle flows a River and there's Music everywhere. VERSE-AU-OOC
1. PROLOGUE

**BlueNote:**

Hello, Lovely Readers.

Here is the** REVISED VERSION** of my ''Meadow''.

**Exit**...  
>... the long and tedious foreword. It will ultimately be posted, one day, as a "postface", at the very end.<strong><br>New form**:  
>The words have not been changed (or very little). I have just found it interesting to suppress the automatic changing lines, so characteristic of verse. So now, my Meadow has become some sort of poem in disguise, under the apparent form of prose. Or if you you look at it the other way around, some prose thing rhyming internally.<strong><br>New chapter arrangement:**  
>You will find several of my previous parts ( as many chapters) gathered under one chapter heading.<strong><br>However:**  
>I will post each new ''part'' individually as a poem until I get enough to gather them all under one chapter heading under the new "disguised poem" form.<p>

I hope you, my new readers, will like it as you discover it, and that, you, who have already read, favorite-d and followed the previous version, won't miss it too much.  
>Want to bite me? Want to praise it? Appraise anyway you want, click on the review thing at the bottom of this page.<p>

Thank you all.

**Disclaimer:**  
>(1) Any ressemblance with another original fanfiction, wherever, is purely fortuitous.<br>(2) Every recognizable character or situation in this story belongs first and foremost to Stephenie Meyer, my literary endeavour being my homage to her, our sire of sorts. I do not intend to usurp her Olympian throne, infringe upon any of her rights or plan to make money out of this.  
>This story is my humble pledge to our Twilight Queen, the bow I take in clumsy reverence.<p>

**AND IN BETWEEN LAY A MEADOW**

**- (| PROLOGUE |) - -  
><strong>

[_Somewhere _ by B . Streisand]

**EPOV**

Somewhere, sometime, there's a meadow.

Yet, no soul now knows – and none shall ever do so where this place or when the time. And though no soul has ever laid their eyes upon the place in endless times, yet I do know the wheres and whens of that meadow. Yes I do know where lies this place I used to go. For I've been there before. I've seen this place of yore.

A younger self than I am now has come there on a random path. A self less alien than my own now has found there quiet after wrath. The body of the boy I was has lain and made a nest upon the soft mattress of its fragrant grass. The brooding head and sulking mind has once found there peace of a kind, and the dulled and forsaken heart so far throb-less and – oh! - so dark, one day, there, has found its Spark; another's beat for his own pulse to mark; a voice, a song for a newborn lark.

The voiceless heart could sing at last in the meadow, so long ago. The song-less lark could voice at last the hidden things his Spark should know.


	2. BOOK I, p I to IV : LITTLE RED PRINCE

**Disclaimer: **just my own clumsy bow, in reverent allegiance to The Twilight Queen.

* * *

><p><strong>AND IN-BETWEEN, LAY A MEADOW<strong>

**-(| BOOK 1 |)**-  
><strong>LITTLE RED PRINCE<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>I<br>I Was What I was**

I was born from the shadows and my father was called Night. I had sprung from the hollows of a womb most unhallowed. Newborn to be evil by right.  
>I was a thing of Red and Black: blood-Red my skin; Pitch-Black my eyes; Red the blood I had to drink to feed some life to my pit-hungry eyes. Ruby rivers pooled Obsidian Black in all my limbs and in my silent heart.<p>

For years and years I had lived and thrived in the deep chambers and the caves of my father's palace underground. And though eons had passed and not decades, I looked, still, not older than a human child of twelve or thirteen years of age.  
>Just like the other fiendish kids my age, I played terrific games, and pulled horrible pranks. I knew all the hallways and found the nooks and cracks where I could hide, and plan, and stage the subtle moves and next attacks I'd launch on unsuspecting adversaries, be they coven of play-along enemies, or the next door retired Old Hag.<p>

I was a prince among the Horned, the Hoofed and the Forsaken and one day would be Ruler of the Savage Garden. Little Red Prince, indeed, of nooks and the hallways should be Black King of the Soul-less one day. I was the son of Night and of the Dark Goddess, I was born to be damned and un-blessed.

**II  
>Pride<strong>

I was also a thing of spite and sensitive pride.

And so, one day, pride pricked more stingingly by longer and sharper barb of jest and jibe, I'd responded a bit harshly to older and venerable ancient in monster monster garb.  
>Father stepped in as an umpire and deemed it fit to act most dire to teach inconsequential scion one thing or two 'bout rank and position. Harsh punishment was bestowed upon the tender skin of my bottom, so that my overgrown ego could humbly fathom - though Prince I was, and would-be king - how low my stool now was at the heel of his throne.<p>

Intent on not stooping one notch lower I reigned in my temper, refrained from usual tantrum and found refuge in that other kingdom of my own.  
>I roamed the maze I so well knew to find a place, a hidden nook, where I could lick the shameful wounds inflicted to my pride, extract the prickling hooks currently hurting my red hide, and perhaps – perhaps !– have a good cry since I wasn't yet too high – or old – to be above being a child.<p>

**III  
>Little Lord of the Moebius Ring<strong>_**  
>or Underground lost-boy<strong>_

Thus I erred and limped along all night – and night down there could mean _some _while – still fuming, ready to pick a fight, have a go at anything to vent the pent up bile, when suddenly I realized I'd lost my way...

... and started freaking out.

I ran this way and then ran that, turned back, only to face a cul-de-sac, and found no-one on the deserted tracks to help the helpless wanderer except the odd spidery lone ranger and a couple of dumb old bats. Not a soul – or so to speak so far below – to help poor me, their future king, out of his pointless tread-milling along the loops of a Moebius endless ring, and point, obligingly which way the lost kingling should redirect his princely steps to hit safely again his much-missed homely den.

To think I 'd bragged so loud about how well I knew each of these sombre bowels! Hell! Was I small! Little Indeed, and so low.

**IV****  
>How Low Do You Think You Can Go?<strong>

Someone somewhere apparently decided that was still a place too high for me, my ego and my pride to stand.  
>And so we took a dive.<p>

I fell – ungracefully – through space, and splashed – quite painfully – into a lake.

The water was cold and dark – colder and darker in fact than the dark things and the cold I'd ever seen and felt in Dad's household. It went at my skin like so many vicious pins, and bit and tore my flesh apart to bury frigid fangs into my absent heart. It sucked the marrow of my bones and all the blood, only to leave my limbs all sore my body limp and without core. The hideous flood numbed and froze me all over, and sucked me right under - so impossibly far! - into a pit of coldest tar.

The lake closed its clammy arms and clasped its cage all around me, opened its icy-toothy mouth...

Waters reached out, and parting to kiss me, ...

swallowed

.

me

.

whole

...

...

...

* * *

><p><strong>Songs (just hints)<strong>

**BOOK I  
><strong>_The Washing of the Water_, Peter Gabriel

**I/ **_Jumpin' Jack Flash,_ The Rolling Stones :-: _Born To Be Wild_

**II**/ _I See a Red Door_, The Rolling Stones :-: _We will Rock you_, Evian ad version (ou OV by Queen)  
><strong>III **_They Stone You_, Bob Dylan :-: _It keeps you running _:-:_ Help_, The Beatles

**IV/ **_Down in a blaze of glory_, Bon Jovi :-: _Cat People_, David Bowie :-: ( counter-tone)_ Octopus's Garden_, The Beatles / Ringo Starr


	3. BOOK 1, Part 5: Words, Words, Words

**A/N** Hi there, Lovely (unknown,invisible, highly hipothetical, review-scared,...) Reader.  
>I know, I know, long time no see. Sorry, I had a bit of a dry spell. Be kind, don't bite or throw things at me.<p>

A billion thanks to those who put me and/or this story on alert and still care about it.

Following the advice of a great French-Canadian writer here, I will soon reorganise the chapters into 'multi-part' chapters (less chapters, but more to read in each one). Apart from the occasional edited word or phrase, the lines will not change.

**AND IN-BETWEEN LAY A MEADOW**

[Somewhere over the Rainbow – Oz / Judy Garland  
>The Sound of Silence – Simon and Garfunkel]<p>

.

-(| **Previously** |)-

The lake closed its clammy arms  
>and clasped its cage all around me<br>opened its icy-toothy mouth,  
>waters reached out,<br>and parting to kiss me,

swallowed

me

whole

**.**

**V**  
><strong>Words, Words, Words<strong>

**.  
><strong>

At first it was all dark.  
>So, so dark, and so utterly black...<br>In fact it was so, so black  
>and so much darker<br>than the heaviest and the deepest  
>my dad the King could even muster,<br>that it didn't feel quite right.

Something was definitely off.  
>This just didn't feel like night.<br>It felt all light and kind of … …"soft ",  
>another voice whispered<br>prompting to me this brand new word.

I had never learned it before  
>nor even heard<br>because in my known world  
>there was nothing of the sort.<p>

There'd never been anything soft  
>around me down there.<br>Besides where I came from  
>there was nothing like that … …"quiet".<p>

There was a lot of noise and sounds  
>and harsh voices and shrill cries<br>from ear-splitting and deafening din at times  
>to rumbling hubbub and numbing drone at lower tides,<br>but nothing quite like this thing quiet .

What powerful feeling it had then been  
>to feel all things around me rise and grow,<br>become alive and sort of … ..."glow",  
>to learn... ..."patience"<br>and hear... ..."silence"  
>around me ebb and flow.<p>

It hummed above all else and below,  
>and came to mean here so much more<br>than just the mere absence of sound.

Oh Do believe, that terrible stillness of the ground  
>I'd learned early and well, before.<br>Brooding, ominous and paramount,  
>it bode no good and bad omens only bore.<br>It spoke of many a thing vile  
>and breathed of evil death.<br>And though expected all the while  
>it was feared and always met<br>with tremors wild and hushed up breaths,  
>half-crazed terror and unshakable dread.<p>

Now the new sound I'd found for ''silence''  
>that went so well with new ''patience''<br>was in my ears and in my head,  
>at the root of everything and everywhere.<p>

Silence was at the beginning of things  
>and Silence still was there after their end,<br>so that the life and all the things  
>just could begin again...<p> 


	4. BOOK 1, part 6  : InBetween, a River

**AN**  
>Please note that the prologue and the first 4 parts of Book 1 have now taken on a <strong>new form<strong>. Things still rhyme (as best as I could make them, any way) but no longer look like verse on the page.  
><strong>Chapterwise<strong>: the prologue still stands alone. Parts I to IV have been grouped within a single chapter. The second Chapter will ultimately group 4 parts, too. Here is the second one of those.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: Mine and yet not. It's Stephenie's first and foremost.

* * *

><p><strong>AND IN BETWEEN, LAY A MEADOW<strong>

**VI  
>And in Between Runs a River<br>[songs?]**

**.  
><strong>

So, I began to feel my tingling body

and my four limbs coming to life again.

I found that I was floating, slow and lazily,

my outstretched back leisurely lain

on a cool bed of rippling water.

.

She'd been running forever

at the bottom of the Sombre Lake,

the now forgotten ancient She-River

who'd reached for me to take me in her wake.

.

Would you have believed, Father

this son of yours if he had dared ever

tell you a sweet and light and gay She-Thing

still dwelt, a strong independent Girl-Being,

under your very nose,

in the darkest and most forsaken pit

of this great big dark kingdom of yours?

And that she daily managéd the feat

of coming and going unnoticed

right under both your kingly feet?

.

She was there first and long before

you made your petty stance.

She'd always had the prece_dance_

and knew secrets you shall always ignore.

She's still there and still she knows

about the keys to long-forgotten doors.

.

She took me far from Father's guarded realm,

the She-River, my Water-Friend,

who now was lapping at my ear

and just before had been

who'd whispered to my addled brain

all the new words I liked to hear.

For they gave truth and meaning clear

to what I felt but just couldn't explain,

so that the good things rightly clicked

in a good place with the right name.

* * *

><p>I know, it's short. Don't bite. Since I have not written much more than I had one month ago, I have chosen to distillate the meadow drop by drop, instead of giving you 1 3 of the bottle and nothing more for who-knows-how-long. It might take me some time to go back to where inspiration failed me and write some more to fill the rest of your bottle. You don't want to get drunk, do you? Or suffer from withdrawal. Or get sick over it all.  
>Until the next drop falls from the decanter, happy read.<p> 


End file.
